Alex Day – Over 500,000 Songs Sold, 3 New Releases & Close to 100 Million YouTube Views

Alex Day, a 23 year-old musician from Essex, England is focused on releasing music that puts listeners in a good mood. And it seems to be working. He has over 500,000 YouTube subscribers, over 500,000 songs sold, almost 100 million youtube views, and was the subject of two recent Forbes articles. Read on as the pop artist talks about how his YouTube channel has seen such rapid growth, why he just released several singles at once, and how he feels about being called “the future of music.”

Without using any “conventional” genre words, describe your sound.
Bouncy happy fun-loving pop music to dance and feel good to

Congratulations on those back to back articles in Forbes! How does it feel to be called “the future of music?”
Thank you, and it feels brilliant! I’m not doing things to try and be contrary or get attention, I’m just releasing music in a way that makes sense and works for me, so it’s nice that other people support my decisions (and publicly so).

You recently released 3 new singles. What was the motivation behind releasing them all together?
I didn’t wanna get caught in the same pattern of ‘here we go again, let’s release a song and try to get it in the charts,’ cause the charts are boring and outdated, and it just seemed like the clearest thing I could do to show I meant that was to release three songs at once, which kills the chart place but is a lot more fun and offers much more variety.

You started your YouTube channel in 2006 and now have around 100 million views on your videos. How have you driven this growth?
It’s basically perseverance. As you said, I’ve been doing it six years, and only in the last year have people really started paying attention to my music. I make sure I upload at least one video a week, keep my stuff consistent and entertaining, and don’t talk about music all the time because people would get bored.

You’re very well known for your YouTube videos. Do you get to play live often?
I could play live (I have in the past, I enjoy it), but I tend not to that much. I can reach more people in a YouTube video and I’m not excluding anyone in other countries that way because it’s all online. Some people live to play to a crowd but that’s not me, I prefer making songs for people to download, share with friends and enjoy—that’s where my passion is.

Aside from YouTube, what are some ways in which you promote your music?
Well I have Twitter and Facebook pages like everyone else in the world, but really it is just YouTube. I don’t have a label, a manager, a press team, a radio plugger, an agent, a publicist, not even a music producer. I make my own music, my own music videos, and YouTube is how I get the word out on those things.

I noticed on your site that you’re very vocal about encouraging your fans to use your music in their videos, projects, talents shows, and whatever else they’d like. What’s your philosophy behind this?
Is that not the norm? I thought everyone would want to do that. I guess it’s just as I’ve said, I want as many people as possible to hear and enjoy my music, and if people are using it in their own projects, that’s a good way of sharing my songs with people. As long as you’re not taking the credit for the song and you’re doing something new with it (not just re-uploading the song with the artwork to YouTube when I already have a video there of my own to showcase it), you can help yourself.

Any advice for other independent artists?
Stop recording albums. I understand that an album can be a great form of art in its own right when all the songs are designed for it and they all weave into each other and they have a concept. Great—but most don’t, most artists don’t write like that, and with the cherry-picking available on iTunes, there’s no point bundling them together. Just focus on making one great song. Keep writing and recording until you have one great song. Then go from there. You only need one great song to make it.

So what’s next on the horizon?
I just released the music video for my summer song “Good Morning Sunshine,” and I’m making the video for another song of mine about falling in love with a ghost (“She Walks Right Through Me”) which will be up soon. Beyond that it’s just spreading the word and hoping people listen, and always writing for the next big song

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Absolutely great. An example how we can take advantage of these mediums. The internet is a nice opportunity to work on a concept of any kind.
Mr Day shows how practically something could WORK OUT in the music-business. Call it whatever you want it, magic or the Day-Method, its just an example about what an independent artist really can do to let things happen ‘easily’ or the best way without spending to much money on the case.

What else we can say? Good job and congratulations!

Well, I need to mention that some people have great ideas and others are ‘creative enough’ to set up their own marketing strategy (with low budget).

The Online Stores are actually traditional and public: everyone with an iPod, for example, used to click on the button to download or stream these contents automatically.

We could take a look at the future, that’s ‘why Mr. Day is showing us the way how ‘Indies’ can develop their strategy plans in a more ‘direct-to-face’ manner.
For those with expensive audioequipment and video- and management personnel who used to make albums, it’s nice to hear Alex Day speaking.

[ Without kidding, I would love to buy his book about all the secrets of his succes (!) LOL ]

Everyone, good luck …

AntaraBeeGee

I love Alex. THE NERMIARMY UNITES!

Rowsheen92

True fans spell it Nermie Army just saying, It says it on one of his videos descriptions

http://twitter.com/claudysgiraffe Claudy

Well Done Alex!!!!!!!! Keep doing good :p

Mae

Alex, I have such a great love for you

Darius

Question: Am I right that your fans see/hear you on YouTube for free? If so, what makes them also buy your music? Do you sell any CDs or only downloads? I’m from a different generation so I thought your interview was very informative and you seem likable and smart. Hope I feel the same way when i hear your music, but in a way, that’s not the point, it’s your vision and motivation. Best of luck.

http://www.beefhearts.wordpress.com Patrick

I’ve been a long time fan of Alex, both as a youtube content creator and as a misician. What’s great about Alex is that he’s spent 6 years making videos and people have connexted with him and and bonded in a sense. When he releases a new song, even though its available for free, we want to see him succeed and with his video updates it allows his fans to feel like they were a part of that success. There’s an interview he did recently about the youtube-mp3 petition where he outlines why he is ok making his music available for free. I’ll try to find it and link it here.

Also the manly onws 6 items of clothing and less than 100 posessions in total. He clearly doesn’t care for earthly goods and therefore really has no need for money aside from basic living expenses.